Compared to Verizon and AT&T, Sprint's network leaves much to be desired in terms of both data speeds and coverage. This isn't the result of a lack of effort, though, as the Kansas-based company has steadily rolled out LTE to new markets throughout the summer. Today the company has announced the availability of 4G LTE in 34 new markets, bringing the total number from 151 up to 185. Sprint customers throughout the South, Midwest, North Carolina, Oregon, and Pennsylvania should now have a new reason to smile.

Sprint's 34 new markets:

Anniston/Oxford, AL

Montgomery, AL

Macon, GA

Alexandria, LA

Houma/Bayou Cane/Thibodaux, LA

Lake Charles, LA

Ruston, LA

Allegan, MI

Bay City, MI

Monroe, MI

Greenville, MS

Kinston, NC

Lumberton, NC

Lawton, OK

Muskogee, OK

Enid, OK

Oklahoma City, OK

Stillwater, OK

Salem, OR

Bedford, PA

Juniata and Mifflin counties, PA

Amarillo, TX

Beaumont/Port Arthur, TX

Corpus Christi, TX

Del Rio, TX

Longview, TX

Lufkin, TX

Midland, TX

San Angelo, TX

Victoria, TX

Fort Atkinson, WI

Marshfield/Wisconsin Rapids, WI

Sheboygan, WI

Whitewater, WI

The full list of markets with 4G LTE coverage is available here. If your location still isn't up there, I feel your pain. Pittsburgh, too, remains nowhere to be found.

Comments

jonathan3579

Isn't that still less than T-Mobile? That's pretty sad.

wolfkabal

Perhaps, but I'll give Sprint this; they're one of the few providing LTE to many of the no-name or smaller towns across the nation. Mind you, they still lack a lot of coverage in most of the major cities, but for those in the boonies, this is kinda nice.

ie: on T-Mo I'll barely have Edge service, and spring I will have LTE. (I have both).

Matthew Fry

They're not doing it as some philanthropy act. They're doing it for the numbers. Add tech to one centrally located tower in a small town with no tall buildings and boom, the whole town has LTE and they can add it to their little map and their big list of little places people don't live in. I'm much more impressed with T-Mobile which, swooped in and took care of most of SLC in a matter of about a week.

squiddy20

Meanwhile, Sprint is actually tearing down most of the old, outdated hardware/equipment and putting in brand new stuff. T-Mobile probably just installed one or 2 small things in each tower and flipped a switch.

Matthew Fry

True, but in the race to LTE, nobody cares how much you had to do to achieve it. They only care if they have signal or not.

enoch861

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't T-Mobile the only American Carrier that is actually ready to turn on LTE-A except they haven't due to the absence of real LTE-A decies?

Freak4Dell

That's because T-Mobile did all that back when they first needed to do it. Sprint is doing that now because they have no choice but to do it. They neglected their towers for years, and the speeds went down the drain. Now they have to basically start from scratch, and it's hurting them dearly. Had they actually just kept up with maintenance routinely like the other carriers did, they would have had LTE rolled out a lot faster, and their 3G wouldn't be slower than a wingless carrier pigeon.

Brandon Fletcher

Actually, in 2012, T-Mobile had NO coverage in San Angelo, TX (everyone was roaming off AT&T or local carrier gsm on EDGE). This year, we've had excellent HSPA+ 4G towers from T-Mobile show up, with the eta of LTE by end of year/beginning of next. So, T-Mobile has been doing their work lately.

Granted, they have HSDPA+ in a lot of locations, which depending on who you ask, is "4G"

jonathan3579

Well, I wasn't trying to dump the whole "4G" argument in here but just comparing LTE markets.

DoctorRabbitfoot

Me neither :) Just sharing what I found as I was also curious.

Brandon Fletcher

I get a consistent 12Mbps where I live on T-Mobile HSDPA+ 4G, whereas Sprint's LTE here goes from 0Mbps to 20Mbps on lucky occasions. I'll take T's 4G over that any day, plus I've seen 30-60Mbps on LTE equipped T-Mobile cities that I've traveled to, so I've been very impressed with T's rollout this year.

Freak4Dell

It's more now. 154 markets for T-Mobile.

HopelesslyFaithful

hey you seem to now a lot. I emailed AP asking about this.

Do you know if this info is true or not? tri-band being turned on soon and tri-band phones? I haven't seen AP touch this at all

Whether it's true or not, I wouldn't be able to tell you. Tri-band is coming sometime, obviously, since they finally took down the iDEN network.There's some speculation going around that the Note 3 may have all three LTE bands for Sprint, but nothing confirmed as of yet, AFAIK. The G2 has it, according to the FCC clearance.

Personally, from knowing Sprint's history, I wouldn't bank on tri-band LTE being widely available anytime soon. If you're considering Sprint because you think they'll have 800MHz LTE blanketing your area by the end of the year, I'd advise you to rethink. Maybe they'll launch some in that spectrum this year, but it will likely be in some obscure cities with a total population of 3. Since they just shut down the iDEN network, I can't imagine that they'd go and flip the switch that quick.

HopelesslyFaithful

word is on the street is that the note 3 is single band and not tri-band...at least that is what people are saying the FCC documents are showing. I will be pissed if that is true. I want the note three but to be stuck with single band only in this stage of the game is garbage. I heard some areas even have tri-band turned on how are being turned on in the next couple months.

If note 3 isn't triband i will sadly go G2 i think. Such BS because LG sucks at supporting their stuff compared to samsung and the stylus and features...so stupid. note 3 will loose a bunch of sales with it is not tri-band. At least from the geek crowd.

Sprint has been moving a lot faster than i thought with the LTE lately. Also i am just west of chicago and should have LTE where i live already so that is why i would be pissed to hunker down for 2 years.

Click the data tab. Once you zoom in a little, you'll see a better representation (zoomed-out, you only get dots where 4G is deployed - this changes to full shading once you zoom it)

Ryan

Another good site is sensorly.com
Since sprint only puts completely deployed information on their map.
Sensorly is user mapped coverage using the sensorly app.
pretty cool app too to see where the nearest coverage is to you as well.

HopelesslyFaithful

is it user reported manually or automated....if it is automated i'll trust it but if it is manually added....its essentially useless.

Ryan

automated. It just uses the phone's sensors to determine what singals are available in the area.

you have the choice in the app to just let it run passively, or only read signals when you open it, but it's not manually entered by users.

Some places may not be there because they were only test sights, but by the same token, sprint LTE hasn't been rolled out to San Diego, but I still have good signal in a lot of places.

wjrandon

Don't trust Sensorly. I had Sprint LTE in Atlanta and Sensorly consistently showed coverage where it didn't exist.

HopelesslyFaithful

might have a crap phone. I know the evo3d has drastically different reception than the photon

It is crowd supported meaning that people download the app, and it takes data as they go about their day. Even though Phoenix, my city, isn't officially announced, you can see that LTE is in a few spots. This is the most accurate because the data comes directly from people's phones, rather than a corporation.

KingRando

Still ZERO major Ohio cities. Very happy that I left Sprint for a local carrier. I finally have an internet connection better than 500kbps

CincyKid

Cincy Bell?

KingRando

Yea. Got a Nexus 4 and my HSPA+ coverage has been excellent all around the city, even at Reds/Bengals games. I should have switched years ago but I kept getting stuck in a broken phone/early upgrade cycle.

culby

Monroe, MI is just over the line from Toledo, making it ALL THE MORE FRUSTRATING.

earth

Rollout has started in the 3 large OH cities...
sensorly.com/map/4G/US/USA/Sprint/lte_310sprint

geniusofthecrowd

Finally starting to get LTE in NYC downtown and in Financial District. I was hoping it would pick it up across the river in Jersey City, but not yet

I guess I wouldn't know, since I moved to Verizon about 10 months ago... Sprint's commitment to this town made it impossible for me to keep giving them the amount of money I was giving them. I have family members that were on Sprint in various parts of the city, and they never saw 4G EVER (although they all had WiMAXX phones). I recently helped all but two of them move to a real carrier. Maybe Sprint should really think about getting serious with the service they provide in the 7th largest city in the US before they give LTE to fucking Joplin, MO...

DirkBelig

You think you have it bad? Try Detroit which never got WiMAX and has little hope of LTE coming. I switched to a Nexus 4 with Straight Talk last November and finally got off Trudge's dial-up speeds AND I'm saving $30/mo. off my company-discounted service.

HopelesslyFaithful

thats because Detroit is a shit hole.....seriously? Who would do business in that dump.

DirkBelig

The metro Detroit area has over 4 million people and you're a fucking asshole.

Good for you, and to be clear, I never had any type of 4G, even WiMAXX. Dan Hesse lit up a square block of WiMAXX in downtonw LA and did the same thing in downtown San Diego and decided that was sufficient to say that Southern California was "4G"... SoCal is a pretty big place... But still more people/sq mile than Joplin...

boom, that sensorly map broken. I looked at that map and it says we have 4g LTE all over San Diego. My HTC Evo LTE is set to accept LTE/CDMA and I've never seen LTE light up once. I installed that sensorly app yesterday, and did the active map session on the drive home, where I was supposed to have LTE coverage according to the map. I think it pinged 300 times and 300 times, it came up 3G. no LTE in San Diego.

Jeremy Wielopolski

If I remember right, GR was the only MI city blessed with Sprint's wimax. Ann Arbor was announced earlier this year as "coming soon" for LTE, which is half-nice for me, working in A2 but living in Ypsi. I thought I read a while ago that they were testing implementation around the Wayne State area, but that was quite a while back and haven't heard anything since.

DirkBelig

I've experienced seeing my 4G light up perhaps a total of 30 minutes over a couple of years in the Wayne State and New Center areas. Woo. Hoo.

Peter Oliver

As long as they keep up the blistering pace of roll-outs I'll stick around for the tri-band lte goodness coming down the line. They had better be spending that Softbank money on fat towers.

Ian

I've noticed a few spots in Phoenix, AZ that now have 4g LTE coverage that wasn't there 2 months ago. At least that's an improvement?!?!?!

Thaddeus Dannar

Probably cause Phoenix was where they did the initial testing for Sprints 4G LTE. Though who knows why they didn't go ahead roll it out across the valley.

Darin

No, its probably the actual rollout, its just not official yet. These are "new" spots of LTE coverage that have been popping up.

bohaaaa

I agree i noticed i get LTE in chandler area.

guest

Minneapolis has been lit up pretty well recently.

Its a welcome change

Andrew

You must not be downtown. I can hardly get even 3G there.

master94

Sprint logic. "Should we cover the big cities like LA and NYC? Nah, lets upgrade Manhattan, and not the one in NY"

earth

sensorly.com/map/4G/US/USA/Sprint/lte_310sprint

Rollout not complete but still significant coverage in LA/NYC.

aegrant71

Oddly enough Cleveland isn't listed but there are a few sprint 4G spots in the Land... they even sent me a text a few weeks ago saying there was a change coming to my neighborhood

marty

Columbus Ohio is on today. Not everywhere but its on...finally

Brandon Fletcher

San Angelo, TX has had Sprint LTE turned on since July, but since we haven't been on the official list, I've let the speed issues go. Now that we're on the official list, they need to fix this city. Sometimes we get 20Mbps, sometimes we get 0Mbps. Zero is mostly what we've gotten since July. I went to T-Mobile awhile ago and have been much happier, but it'd still be nice to see some decent data speeds for my friends and family who are stuck with Sprint.

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I am grateful for this valid information. You have represented your points in an insightful and interesting way. I've read other writings on similar topics that were boring and ineffectual. Yours is easier to digest.

david

do not get sprint new service their service still sucks I have more problems with the 4G LTE more drop calls internet keep getting disconnected very disappointed and breakfast again I guarantee coverage yep there map shows the entire city is 4 g l a t e nothing but a damn lie

david

to be honest cricket works faster and they have 3G and its faster than their 4G LTE amazing they should ask ther engineers for advice from cricket

Jason

I live in detroit and the status bar says 4g but the speeds are poop. I transferred from t mobile where the 4g speed was over 10mbs in my house

Anthony Williams

I think Sprint hates Detroit. No WiMAX no L.T. E just their slow Ass 3G.

Kamal Rahman

our company is leaving Sprint for another carrier because of slow connection and lack of initiative to bring 4G in the area.

Belle2427

Tell me why I've been paying extra for over two years to get 4g on my son's phone when Sprint had diddly squat in coverage during that time? Out of contract for a while now and trying to decide - should I stay or should I go?

SPRINTBAD!

I work in Leawood KS about 1 Mile from the Sprint world headquarters. Drop calls all of the time. It is by far the worst network out there. If I was running Sprint I would at least have their phones work right next to the world Q.